2% of Physicians Accountable for Half of Malpractice Reports

By: Tinker Ready

Larry Schlachter, MD, JD, is a former neurosurgeon and an attorney who says he turned to malpractice law after an injury to his hand.

His book, Malpractice: A Neurosurgeon Reveals How Our Health-care System Puts Patients at Risk, is more personal than revealing. Neither a policy tome nor an investigative report, it is the view of someone "with a doctor's heart" and a "lawyer's awareness that great harm is sometimes done by physicians to patients through narcissism, carelessness and ineptitude," he writes.

Schlachter contends that the malpractice system is heavily weighted in favor of doctors and insurance companies. The data bank study shows that little is being done to address the subset of errant doctors, he says.

He believes, however, that hospitals are "in a tough situation" when state medical boards fail to investigate and restrict doctors who pay multiple malpractice claims.

Read the full article here.